Reba McEntire’s New Boyfriend Is a Geologist, Photographer and Charmer

Reba McEntire was just looking for a day trip. She ended up with a new boyfriend.

The country legend and Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo stepped into the public eye for the first time at the 2018 Grammys on Sunday (Jan. 28). The show followed a fun weekend in New York City that included several theater performances (one of their shared passions), she says. They've been dating for five months.

McEntire tells Taste of Country she was vacationing with friends in Jackson Hole, Wy., in August when they met.

"Kix and Barbara Brooks thought it'd be a good idea, since we were gonna be up around Yellowstone, to get Kix's best friend's wife's brother to show us around. He's a photographer in Jackson Hole," she explains of Lasuzzo, a retired geologist who lives in that area part-time. He agreed to be their tour guide, and together they saw several bear, moose and elk before finishing the afternoon with dinner on the town. And then ...

"I made another trip to Jackson Hole, because I just love it up there, and he asked me out for a date — just the two of us," she says. "And we've been dating ever since."

At that point it'd been two years since McEntire and her husband of 26 years separated. To varying degrees she's talked about the pain and emotional toil of her second divorce, but mostly kept it positive, telling us in January 2017 that she was indeed ready to love again.

So, what's more terrifying? The start of a new relationship or wearing a wig and mustache to play KFC's Colonel Sanders?

"I'd say start a new relationship, because you never know," the 62-year-old says. "But Skeeter and I get along really well. We love the mountains. Everything that we have encountered ... we love going to plays in New York. He was in the oil and gas business, so being from Oklahoma, I was very familiar with that. As a matter of fact my very first job other than singing was checking records with an oil lease company! It's so funny."

Lasuzzo is originally from Louisiana but now splits time between Texas and Jackson Hole. McEntire talked to Taste of Country from Nashville.